Michel Charles Diehl was a French historian and archaeologist who was an authority on Byzantine art and history. Born on July 4, 1859, in Strasbourg, France, he studied there at the École normale supérieure; in 1888, he received his PhD in Byzantine history from the University of Nancy, where he also taught. In 1899, he began teaching Byzantine history at the University of Paris, where he became a full professor in 1907. Although an historian by training, he authored numerous books on Byzantine art history, one of the earliest French academics to do so. Diehl died in Paris on November 1, 1944.